“for the anniversary of my death” w.s. merwin
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“For the Anniversary of My Death” W.S. Merwin. Student. Presentation. Background of W.S. Merwin Explication Literary Terms Personal Analysis Critical Analysis. Background of W.S. Merwin. Born 1927, poem written in 1967 S on of a Presbyterian minister - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
“For the Anniversary of My Death” W.S. Merwin
Student
Presentation
« Background of W.S. Merwin
« Explication
« Literary Terms
« Personal Analysis
« Critical Analysis
Background of W.S. Merwin
• Born 1927, poem written in 1967• Son of a Presbyterian minister• First interested in prose, later turned to poetry• Known for both original and translated poetry• According to poetryfoundation.org:
“[Merwin] eventually became known for an impersonal, open style that eschewed punctuation.”
Explication
Merwin’s Text
Every year without knowing it I have passed the day
When the last fires will wave to me
And the silence will set out
Tireless traveler
Like the beam of a lightless star
Rephrasing
Every year I live, there’s a day that
will become my death eventually
• Death -> Last fires (Funeral pyres)
• Death -> Silence (Sleep)
• Death -> Traveler (“Undiscovered
Country”)
• Death -> Lightless star
Explication
Merwin’s Text
Then I will no longer
Find myself in life as in a strange garment
Surprised at the earth
And the love of one women
And the shamelessness of men
As today writing after three days of rain
Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease
And bowing not knowing to what
Rephrasing• Life is awkward and
unnatural• Death is where we return• Just as rain is natural, so is
death• I bow down to death,
although I don’t know him yet
Literary TermsEvery year without knowing it I have passed the day
When the last fires will wave to me
And the silence will set out
Tireless traveler
Like the beam of a lightless star
Then I will no longer
Find myself in life as in a strange garment
Surprised at the earth
And the love of one women
And the shamelessness of men
As today writing after three days of rain
Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease
And bowing not knowing to what
• Free Verse• Enjambment
– Absolutely no punctuation
• Alliteration– T’s – S’s
• Imagery– Fire | Traveller | Star | Garment– Three days of rain | Wren sing
• Anaphora– Ties beginning to the end
• Metaphor• Simile
Personal Analysis
• Merwin’s Eternal Rainfall: Death in “For the Anniversary of My Death”
– How he establishes death as a theme
– Why we must accept it
• Death is constantly around us
– “Every year I pass…”
• Life is more unnatural than death
– “Find myself in life…”
• Death is the natural order
– We must bow to it, although we don’t recognize it
Critical Analysis
• “It begins, mordantly enough, even morbidly, with life conceived of as
having attained purpose and a measure of identity only when it reaches
the end.” (Ramsey 589).
– Supports the idea that life is only truly ‘natural’ in death
• “[The Lice’s] first premise is the intuition of apocalypse.” (571).
• “The poet’s long standing concern with inklings of his own mortality now
flows inexorably into the apprehension, little short of the certainty, that
we are all living out the end of something.” (571).
Works Cited
• Google Images• http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/w-s-merwi
n• Merwin, W.S. “For the Anniversary of My Death.”
The Lice. New York: Atheneum, 1967. Print.• Ramsey, Jarold. “The Continuities of W.S. Merwin:
‘What Has Escaped Us We Bring with Us’.” The Massachusetts Review 14.3 (1973): 569-590. Web.
• Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1917. Print.